Cannot Keep a Secret

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A classic sitcom trope, in which a character seems to be physically incapable of keeping a secret for very long, at least without showing extreme discomfort. Usually, by the end of the episode, or even within the same scene, they would spill the beans. Although sufferers of this trope in fiction are mostly women, due to the prevalent stereotype of women as gossips, there are male examples too.

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Examples:

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Anime & Manga

Haruna Saotome in Mahou Sensei Negima! will not keep a secret if the truth is more entertaining. Only minutes after threatening to torture her friends for not letting her in on The Masquerade earlier, she proceeds to start telling the next people she sees, which is exactly why they didn't tell her in the first place. She also comes very close to telling Anya about Negi's Pactios.

In episode 7 of Chronicles of the Going Home Club, the going home club members talk about Natsuki's secret birthday party and plans, all while Natsuki is sitting in the club room hearing every little detail of it. She even tries to point out what's so secret about it if she's already expecting it.

In episode 13 of season 4 in Minami-ke, Kana utilizes this trope to get people to come watch the cherry blossoms fall off the trees, but no one seems interested. Then she hears various characters spilling other character's secrets, and intentionally blurts out a secret viewing place to individual groups of them. It doesn't seem to work at first, because she's by herself on the big day, but a short while later, practically all of the cast shows up to celebrate and watch the cherry blossoms fall.

In Hajime no Ippo, pretty much every member of the Kamogawa gym is like this. Every time Ippo tells a fellow member to shut it about something he will do (like a date with Kumi), the whole gym knows the day after. Itagaki is the most notable offender of this though: not only does he tell Mashiba the details of the relationship between Ippo and Kumi, but when the same Mashiba tells him a secret of his own, while Itagaki swears to keep it we see a pannel showing how impatient he is of telling everyone at the gym!

Part of the initial hook of My Monster Secret is that male lead Asahi Kuromine can't lie or keep a secret to save his life (he doesn't want to be this way, the guy just has no poker face whatsoever). The day he decides to confess his feelings to his classmate Youko Shiragami, his three best friends admit that they've known about his crush for ages. But then he finds out Youko is a vampire and will have to leave the school if she's found out, meaning he gets very invested in protecting her secret.

In Fate/Apocrypha, Rider of Black/Astolfo constantly blurts out sensitive information like Servant's True Names and Noble Phantasms, much to the Black Faction's annoyance. This carries over into his appearances in Fate/Grand Order.

Comic Books

There's an example in Yann et Julie, an old and obscure Franco-Belgian comic book: In one of the skits, Yann sees Julie coming out of a shop during Christmas Holidays, having ordered an item. He presses her to tell him everything about this, but she's dubious as she knows he can't keep secrets. After he swears he will keep it, she reveals she'll offer the new Nintenga to one of her friends. Sure enough, once they part ways, Yann goes to the shop to get info about the order, and while the clerk can't tell him any name, he gives him the phone number he has to use to tell when the order will be available. Yann rushes to his house, dials the number, and right off the bat, thinking he's talking to Julie's friend, starts to spill out about the present... Only to hear the voice of a furious Julie: in his excitement, he didn't notice it was her phone number.

Transformers: More than Meets the Eye: Swerve, by dint of being Swerve, is physically incapable of keeping any secret for more than a few seconds, even his own. Mockingly pointed out by Chromedome in a conversation with Skids.

In The Smurfs comic book version of "The Astro Smurf", the title character tells one inquisitive Smurf about the spaceship he's intending to build and warns him to keep it a secret. However, that Smurf ends up telling another Smurf, and soon enough the whole village knows about it!

New Super-Man: The title character blows his existence, the Justice League of China's existence, and his secret identity by issue #2.

Comic Strips

Edda in 9 Chickweed Lane is an unrepentant gossip, who gets offended if she finds someone (like Amos) who can keep a secret.

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Fan Works

Krillin in Dragon Ball Z Abridged becomes this whenever he gets nervous, which happens to be a lot. One time he nearly blurted out where he and Gohan came from to Freeza before Gohan stopped him (though Dende revealed it right afterwords).

In the Frozen fanfic Frozen Wight, it turns out keeping secrets is not a concept that Olaf understands very well:

When he happens to see Anna make out with Fritz, Anna makes him promise to keep it secret from Kristoff:

Greg's parents in Meet The Fockers, an extremely liberal and open couple who are too overjoyed that Greg got Pam pregnant before their wedding to keep it under wraps.

In The Far Country, taciturn gold prospector and cattle driver Jeff informs his partner, Ben, that he didn't tell Ben about the plan to leave Dawson by river (thus avoiding the bad guys waiting on the overland route) because Ben would spill the beans. Ben promptly starts blabbing to their friends about using the river as an escape route. Later Ben goes off to buy coffee for the trip and blabs some more, with fatal consequences.

After Nick gets turned into a vampire in What We Do in the Shadows, he makes sure to tell almost everyone he meets. This naturally gets another vampire killed by a vampire hunter.

The Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen movie Our Lips Are Sealed revolves around this trope, as it is about two girls in the Witness Protection Program who constantly have to change hiding places because they keep blurting out their identities and locations. It gets to the point where the FBI issues an ultimatum: they slip up one more time, and they're leaving them for dead.

Literature

Rubeus Hagrid from Harry Potter is described, quite accurately, by several characters as being "less than discreet", despite his best efforts to the contrary.

Hagrid: I shouldn't have told you that.

There is a Fairy Tale about a peasant who found some treasure and is afraid that his wife who is like this will get him in trouble. So he starts a Zany Scheme, making her believe that all sorts of bizarre and made-up things are happening, before he tells her the secret. Naturally, when she spills the beans and mentions that he found the treasure on the same day when these impossible things happened, the authorities believe her to be crazy, and the treasure nonexisting. Just as the smart peasant had planned.

Lori has this trait in the Aunt Dimity series; this trope is frequently invoked and only partly Played for Laughs. This trait is one of those that make her suited to the village gossip hive that is Finch. It's also the reason Bill doesn't tell her where he's sending her and the kids to escape the stalker at the opening of Aunt Dimity and the Deep Blue Sea. As it turns out, she's not the one to give that game away; Sir Percy makes an airy remark about taking her over Gretna Green with the stalker literally hiding in the bushes, so he knows they're going to Scotland and follows them there.

In The Wind in the Willows Toad's recklessness includes a tendency to blab any secret he hears, even after promising not to. As a result, his father never told him some important things about Toad Hall.

Ted can't so much not keep secrets as he doesn't understand why something should be a secret unless specifically told so. For example, when Stella told him she hadn't had sex in five years, he immediately told the rest of the gang, much to her annoyance.

In a first season episode, Phoebe learns that their handy man, Leo is essentially an Angel. She tells her sisters by the end of the episode but they don't believe that Leo is magical, which is odd considering that they are themselves witches...

To a lesser extent, Paige. In Season 4 Piper told her not to tell Phoebe that they suspect Cole of being a demon. Paige almost immediately does afterwards.

A kid from the A & A Music Factory can't keep secrets either as he went around panacking and trying to avoid Ally after finding out Austin's plan to surprise her during their performance at the karaoke place. He ends up telling her anyway, however.

Virginia on Raising Hope encourages others to blackmail her with a secret of her own to avoid blabbing theirs. This backfires when her family notices her "gossip face" and she ends up telling them her own secret.

Cheers: In "Truce or Consequences", Carla confides in Diane, only for Diane to turn around and blab the secret to Coach less than 24 hours later. (Well shy of the purported 47.) Of course, it turns out the secret was a huge lie in the first place.

An entire episode of Corner Gas revolved around Brent and Lacey competing to see which one of them is a better confidant.

Emma: See? You both suck.

Dog with a Blog: Avery suffers a horrible case of this trope. Whenever she is told a secret, she will panic and start hyperventilating before finally blurting it out.

Chandler is pretty much made of this trope, several times during the series he has accidentally revealed his friends' secrets. Probably his biggest offence is when he revealed to Rachel that Ross was in love with her. In a final season episode he reveals to a child that they were adopted and then later reveals to Phoebe's nieces and nephew that Phoebe actually gave birth to them.

Chandler: I'm going to go tell Emma that she was an accident.

Monica's just as guilty. At one point, Monica learns that Gary is gonna ask Phoebe to move in with him, and asks that she doesn't tell Phoebe. Monica manages to hold out for a full 25 seconds before blabbing.

When Joey was throwing a party for the cast members of his soap opera on the roof, he didn't tell the others due to them gaining multiple idiocy levels around celebrities (Rachel being the worst of them). After he concedes to allow Rachel to attend the party, she almost immediately heads across the hall, and basically tells the others "He didn't want me to tell you, so I came over here to tell you guys."

Saturday Night Live: Kristin Wiig's character Sue, who is almost orgasmic in her desire to tell a secret, usually involving parties. (Sorry for the ad at the start of the video.)

Averted in Scrubs; Carla usually can't keep secrets, but when Eliot loses her job at another hospital, she manages not to tell Turk and J.D. about it. Of course, they can tell she knows something ... so she tells them she's keeping the secret that Eliot smokes a pipe.

It's happened to Fran Fine a number of times on The Nanny, like in "One False Mole and You're Dead".

And then there's Niles:

Maxwell: Niles, can you keep a secret? Niles: Well, I'm good until I meet another person.

Gypsy: Can you guys keep a secret? Crow: Never have, never will! Haha!

The Big Bang Theory: Sheldon can't do impromptu secrets. So he goes way, way overboard constructing elaborate, and usually unnecessary, lies. They fall apart because he's Sheldon.

Michael Scott from The Office frequently blurts out people's secrets. On several occasions it's been due to him showing off what he perceives as a close friendship (evidenced, in his mind, by the fact that they confided in him in the first place) with the person whose secret it is.

Andy in Parks and Recreation has a minor nervous breakdown when he learns Leslie and Ben are pregnant and he can't tell anyone. When telling them that he's bad at keeping secrets, he accidentally mentions that Kyle's wife is cheating on him, and that his neighbor is in witness protection.

Nick in New Girl is wholly uncomfortable with having secrets. When he has one, he starts sweating uncontrollably. At one point, to try to keep a secret, he wears a head-concealing motorcycle helmet just to buy a little more time of no eye-contact.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: In "Tears of the Prophets," Jadzia shows that the words "private matter" mean nothing to her when Bashir and Quark ask her and Worf what they were talking about:

Worf: It is a private matter. Jadzia: We're thinking about having a baby! Worf: It was a private matter.

'Allo 'Allo!: Lieutenant Grueber had the reputation that he would break the second someone tickled him with a feather, as did Rene himself. Given that they were a Nazi art thief and a French Resistance operative respectively, this was not a good trait to have.

Rose on The Golden Girls was well known for her inability to keep secrets, because she was both a Bad Liar and a Cloud Cuckoo Lander. The other girls knew about this weakness, and were quick to exploit it. In one episode, Blanche is able to get Rose to blab by threatening to tickle her.

Cindy Brady was infamous for her love of knowing—and sharing—secrets. One episode had her running around bragging that she knew a secret, just to get her siblings to ask her about it.

It's less a recurring trait than another consequence of his general idiocy, but Perceval has some moments, like when Karadoc wonders if Perceval can keep secrets. Perceval argues that he's great at keeping secrets, for example he never told anyone what Karadoc had confided in him:

Perceval (yelling across a crowded room): HEY INNKEEPER! I ever tell you about how Karadoc used to wet the bed until he was seventeen? Innkeeper: Uh... Can't say I remember, no. Perceval: See, told you.

Lancelot (in exile at the time) confesses his Big Secret (his love for Guenievre) to Bohort. Bohort repeats it to Guenievre... unfortunately, Arthur was invisible at the time (Merlin screwed up a potion, again), hears the whole thing them and storms off.

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Music

From the Jets' "Crush On You":

You must have heard it from my best friend

She's always talkin' when she should be listenin'

Can't keep a secret to save her life

But still I trusted her with all I felt inside

Pro Wrestling

In 2004, after her test came back positive, Lita confides to Stacy Keibler that she's pregnant but asks her not to tell Matt Hardy (Lita's boyfriend) because she wants to tell him herself. Later that same show, Stacy tells Matt.

Radio

The mid 70s syndicated five-minute comedy The Secret Adventures of the Tooth Fairy had an installment where a dentist is in a contest to guess which famous person is in the broom closet. He knows and is sworn to secrecy. He eventually blabs out that the famous person is Thomas Edison.

Nurse: Doctor...are you trying to tell me that Thomas Edison is in the broom closet? Doctor: No, I'm not. I swore to keep it a secret.

Religion

The Bible: "He who goes about as a talebearer reveals secrets; therefore do not meddle with him who flatters with his lips." (Proverbs 20:19)

Video Games

In Mass Effect 3, EDI complains that Liara doesn't seem to trust her, and notes that she's become much more paranoid ever since she became the Shadow Broker. If you've played the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC, that piece of information is not a surprise, and the conversation continues unabated. But she says it even if you haven't played the DLC.

Shepherd: Wait, Liara's the Shadow Broker? EDI: ...oops.

Visual Novels

Konomi Yanase in Princess Evangile is horrible at keeping any kind of secret. So much so, that in her route, she just flat-out admits in front of their friends that she and Masaya had sex the other night out loud! Even worse, she tells her parents about it over the phone. Naturally, the other end goes silent for 3 minutes before her shocked mother can reply back.

Rudy in Rain is known to be bad at keeping the secret that Maria is a lesbian, among other slips.

Harem of Grrl Power due to having a single mind split between five bodies. If one sees or hears something, the other four know and often react instantly, thus making any efforts to tell the body actually present to keep a secret worthless. Sydney once tried to swear her to secrecy, only to hear the other four Harems in the next room spilling the beans already.

The Order of the Stick: It's a good thing the rest of the Order usually keeps an eye on him, because Elan is very bad at keeping secrets.

Haley: A secret kind of quest. Elan: Yeah, we need to find this guy, Girard Draketooth, and tell him that— Haley: Elan!! What part of "secret" do you not understand? Elan: The part where I don't tell other people, obviously.

Likewise, Veldrina, the elven representative at the Godsmoot, who immediately tells Roy, the person she believed to be delivering her dumplings, that she's on a secret mission.

Wrecan: That elf has never had a thought that she didn't immediately articulate.

Noob: La Quête Légendaire: At some point, Sparadrap is doing something that is only technically okay as long as he does not share a certain piece of information with his guildmates. When his brother makes a correct guess on the nature of that information, Sparadrap's immediate reaction is to ask him if he saw his computer screen while he was distracted just a little earlier.

DW is desperate to be told a secret, any secret, which she then tells other people — because what's the point of knowing a secret if you don't tell? She eventually learns An Aesop about keeping secrets.

It's also a Running Gag that Arthur's best friend Buster just cannot keep a secret — whenever Arthur tells him a secret, he'll promise to keep it and then promptly loudly inform the person closest to them that he's got a secret to tell them. When Arthur is still standing right there.

Pam Poovey in Archer has this reputation among her colleagues. Deserved, as can be seen in the following quote.

In a Flash Back episode to when Maggie was born, Marge begs her sisters Patty & Selma to not tell until she's ready to inform her husband.

Marge: I've got to tell Homer about this baby in just the right way and at just the right time. Until then, please, keep this to yourselves. Patty: Oh, if he found out now, it would probably destroy him, huh? Marge: Oh, yes. Patty and Selma: (exchange evil grins and get up) Gotta go! Marge: Wait a minute! Wait, I know that look. Now promise you won't tell Homer. Selma: Oh, we promise we won't tell... Homer. (they go to the phone book and open it to page one) Patty: Hello, is this A. Aaronson? It might interest to you to know that Marge Simpson is pregnant again. (later) Patty: (on the phone with a weary voice) Just thought you'd like to know, Mr. Zykowski. (hangs up, sighs) There. Aaronson and Zykowski are the two biggest gossips in town. In an hour, everyone will know.

Also used in "Stark Raving Dad" when Homer's friend (supposedly Michael Jackson) tells Homer to ask Bart to keep his visit a secret.

Bart: No Dad, I will not tell another another living soul... (listens on phone) ...No, not even Milhouse. (Bart hangs up phone, before struggling to keep his hand away; he submits and quickly dials Milhouse) Bart: Hey Milhouse, can you keep a secret? Milhouse: No. Bart: Oh, who cares! Michael Jackson is coming to my house!

Also played with in another episode, where Homer overhears Moe proclaim he'll give a free beer to the gossiper "Mr X" (Homer's secret alias). Homer whispers if Moe can keep a secret, he claims no, not even a little one.

In the "Green Isn't Your Color" episode of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, one of the recurring jokes is Twilight's extreme difficulty in not telling secrets (particularly because of the irony in that telling said secrets would almost immediately solve the episode's conflict).

Pinkie Pie—a Motor Mouth and Cloudcuckoolander extreme—surprisingly averts this trope in a later episode, "The One Where Pinkie Pie Knows." She's tasked with keeping a huge secret, and spends the entire episode trying (and failing) to avoid situations that might tempt her to blab. Pinkie comes dangerously close to cracking several times, but manages to hold in the news (though the pressure literally breaks her apart in the end).

Spongebob Squarepants: Patrick Star is too dumb to keep a secret. In fact, it was thanks to him that Mr. Krabs found out where their hiding place.

6teen: Given her gossipy nature, if somebody tells Caitlin a secret, it is almost guaranteed that she will spill it. She told her Guy of the Week all of the gang's most embarrassing stories in "Pillow Talk" after promising to keep the stories only among the group, and she reveals Jude's secret girlfriend Melinda to the gang in "Silent Butt Deadly".

Wander: (to Lord Hater) [Sylvia] wanted to come, but she had to go to the bathroom! Zbornaks only go once every like, five months? Crazy huh?! She told me it takes a while and it's kind of embarrassing and so she doesn't want everybody knowing about it so she said (as Sylvia) Wander, don't go blabbing like you always do! Oh...

Mr. Peevly gives Bananas the Gorilla a bunch of bananas for being a loyal friend of The Hair Bear Bunch, and that he'd never tell the keepers to where they've escaped ("Panda Pandemonium"). Bananas concurs, "I'd never tell anyone that they've escaped to the carnival!"

Linda Belcher from Bob's Burgers can't keep a secret at all. Sh once informed a friend of her's their plan to trick their landlord into selling the wharf... behind said landlord's back... and not really whispering at all. When Bob sets a trap to find out who has been ruining all his Thanksgiving turkeys and tells Linda about a second turkey, she told everyone else behind Bob's back, making finding the culprit with the trap All for Nothing.

Even the Propulsions have a hard time keeping other secrets. In "Earthday Birthday", Carrot and Celery let slip that a surprise party is being planned to Jet, luckily they don't tell him that it is for him (to celebrate the anniversary of when he arrived on Earth)

Real Life

Actor Christopher Lee subverted this magnificently when an interviewer asked about his World War II experiences in Britain's Special Operations Executive. Lee leaned in and asked, "Can you keep a secret?" The interviewer said yes, at which point Lee replied "So can I." So much for that question.

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